Read Laughter in Ancient Rome Online
Authors: Mary Beard
laughter, ancient: Alexandrian,
51–52
; caused by wounds,
26
,
224n10
; chemically induced,
52
; at elderly women,
173
; erotics of,
241n45
; ethnic differences in,
51–52
; between master and slave,
137–39
; origin of,
111
; Peripatetic school on,
110
; philosophical tradition on,
110
; visual images of,
49
,
56–59
,
162–63
,
165
,
166
,
233n24
laughter, derisory,
5
,
106
; association with Aristotle,
29
,
33
,
227n40
; Dio’s,
14
; Quintilian on,
28
,
37
; Roman,
17
; Tarentines’,
4
,
6
,
220n10
; victims of,
37
laughter, English: early,
50
,
59–60
,
66
; eighteenth-century,
66
,
237nn58
,
62
; vocabulary for,
71
laughter, French: royal versus revolutionary,
237n62
laughter, Greek: Demosthenes’ use of,
102
,
103
; modern comprehension of,
54
; nuanced images of,
227n41
; at Roman dress,
4
; and Roman laughter,
ix
,
35
,
69
,
86
,
88
,
203
,
207–8
; Roman side of,
91–95
; Spartan,
93–94
,
244n85
; terminology of,
239n14
; vocabulary of,
6
,
71
,
76
,
207
laughter, nineteenth-century: modern comprehension of,
53
laughter, past,
50–56
; changing registers of,
67
; inherited conventions of,
54
; modern comprehension of,
52–56
; repeating patterns of,
67
; Roman reflections on,
50
; systematization of,
70
laughter, Roman: at abuse of power,
3–4
,
220n10
; across social hierarchies,
135–40
; ancient authors on,
69
; apotropaic,
58
,
146
,
234n25
,
256n70
; in art,
57–59
; association with prostitutes,
80
; Augustan,
69
; Bakhtin and,
50
; at bodily transgression,
51
; Caligula’s coercing of,
6
,
134
; changes in,
68–69
; circumstances of,
16
; consequences of,
107
; controlling,
133–34
; control over,
43
; in culinary economy,
148
; cultural geography of,
191
; in
Declamationes,
79–81
; derisive,
17
; diachronic history of,
69
; as diagnostic of villainy,
77
; Dio’s accounts of,
1–8
; discursive tropes of,
140
; elites’,
4
,
88
,
89
,
115
; between emperors and subjects,
135–36
,
140–42
; emperors’ control of,
134–35
; emperors’ use of,
129–35
; excessive,
77
; exclusionary/inclusionary,
17
; facilitation of communications,
136
; faked and real,
17
; false certainties in,
83
; flatterers’,
141
,
150–51
; geography of,
51
; between gods and mortals,
136–37
; in Greek,
85–95
; and Greek laughter,
ix
,
35
,
69
,
86
,
88
,
203
,
207–8
; at human-animal boundary,
159–60
,
164–67
,
174
,
178
,
259n11
; humiliating,
77
; illusion in,
58
; imitation in,
58
,
78
,
160
,
173
,
174
; of imperial court,
129
; impersonation in,
78
; inappropriate,
51
,
80
; incongruity in,
81
,
117
,
241n50
; in Latin language,
70–73
; linguistic rules of,
82
; in literature,
70–73
,
136
,
140
,
157
; in master-slave relations,
137–40
; at mime,
160
,
169–71
; modern comprehension of,
4
,
18
,
52–56
,
75
,
211–12
; nonelite,
87–88
,
193
; old-style,
68–69
,
78
,
237n63
; policing functions of,
232n6
; prohibitions concerning,
51
,
123
; protocols of,
51
,
77
,
82
,
142
; public,
100
,
115
,
241n46
; at puns,
118
; relationship to mimicry,
263n62
; relationship to power,
3–4
,
17
,
77
,
106
,
128–29
,
197
,
220n10
,
252n2
; rhetorical uses of,
28
,
54–55
; ribald,
68
; scripted,
8–17
,
223n51
; signals implied by,
81
; slogans of,
76
; social reality of,
140
; sociolinguistic rules governing,
83
; spontaneous,
4
,
16
,
39
,
43
,
127
; through comparison,
252n9
; transgressive,
241n46
; truth and falsehood in,
125–26
,
129
; understanding of,
17–19
,
70
; and verbal jokes,
6
; in Virgil’s fourth
Eclogue,
81–85
; vocabulary in Latin,
71–73
; written representations of,
11
,
59
,
222n35
.
See also
jokes, Roman; wit, Roman